St. Anthony Messenger Cutting and Clueless

The St. Anthony Messenger Press, the Cincinnati-based national provider of inspirational and educational Roman Catholic spirituality resources, announced Monday it is redefining its strategy and reducing staffing.

Father Dan Kroger said the 116-year-old communications company, based in Over-the-Rhine and sponsored by the Franciscan Friars of St. John the Baptist Province, is offering voluntary early retirement to eligible employees, closed its Cincinnati Call Center and will stop using its independent field sales force.

St. Anthony Messenger has long been on our list of publishers to buy very little from because they tend to publish heterodox authors. I have also been pretty leary of their Catholic Update that I frequently see in parish literature racks. I recently found an older edition from several years back that suggested contraception use is a matter of conscience for a couple.

A couple of years ago St. Anthony Messenger purchased Servant Publications, a thoroughly orthodox publisher that we had been working with for a while. I assumed that they did it to put up an orthoodox front for the company. After a single attempt to produce a single mixed catalog for both companies that met with a lot of protest, they went back to separating the two into different catalogs or into completely separate sections of the trade catalog.

I found the end of the article particular telling and it doesn’t bode well for the publisher:

He [Father Dan Kroger] also said the traditional Catholic audience is shrinking and the subscriber base is declining.

It may be that HIS traditional audience is shrinking – the audience that likes dissidents – but the audience that actually appreciates true Catholicism isn’t shrinking. The fact that he can’t see that makes me doubt the company’s ability to adapt to the changing attitudes among Catholics.